Being the amazing, true-to-life adventures and (very likely) misadventures of a writer who seeks to take his education, activism and seemingly boundless energy to North Minneapolis, (NoMi) to help with a process of turning a rapidly revitalizing neighborhood into something approaching Urban Utopia. I am here to be near my child. From 02/08 to 06/15 this blog pushed free speech to the envelope, so others could take heart and speak unafraid. Email me at hoffjohnw@gmail.com

Monday, February 22, 2010

Regular readers may have noticed some minor-but-very-cool changes here at Johnny Northside Dot Com. We now have a "recent comments" function, an ability for readers to recommend articles to Digg, a new Facebook button, and some kind of RSS subscription feed...thingie.

These improvements were paid for by trading information about a haul of dumpster dived books to a sort of technical, geeky friend of mine who sells the books online. Also, I was recently having problems with my computer and a wonderful NoMi neighbor fixed it right up...so I rewarded him with a bottle Prosecco, pictured above.

I'd like to talk a bit about how regular readers can use these technical changes to greater effect. First of all......the first sentence or two of your comments will appear in the recent comments feed. So write comments with that in mind, and maybe more folks will jump into your discussion. Next, using Digg will allow you to share articles with a wider audience, if you're so inclined. If you think an article is important enough to "Digg it," feel free. I may not have the time or ego myself, which is probably only half true.

Third, Facebook is a great way to share articles with your friends. If you are MENTIONED in an article, and all you need to do is press a button on my blog to put it on your Facebook page, why wouldn't you?

And, yes, these improvements were paid for with...nothing, basically. So from time to time, I might like to direct you to the PayPal button. This is a volunteer effort, here, folks. But I believe in that effort, in the impact of telling our NoMi stories, and giving a forum for information and opinions.

Tomorrow is going to be a big day for a story that started on our blog. Be sure to watch the City Pages website late in the evening, and on Wednesday. And thank you, thank you, thank you for reading!